Your guide to the annual national NHS staff survey

Your voice matters

Content Table Of

Foreword

Jane Haire Chief People Officer

Welcome to your guide to the NHS National annual Staff Survey. This guide walks you though each important phase and shows you how you can help to make UHNM a great place to work for everyone.

Along with my executive colleagues, I have spent many months out and about talking with teams and individuals working here at UHNM about their experiences. What I know from this is we do not always get it right for everyone. Our people are our greatest asset, and it is vital that we create the right environment where everyone feels listened to and valued.

As a leadership team we make changes and investments based on what we hear from those completing the National Staff Survey, as well as our monthly local Staff Voice survey.

I encourage you to be transparent with your team about the results allowing us to create improvements and areas of opportunity as a result of the data. We understand that some changes may take weeks, months or even years to implement however as a leadership team we are here to support you.

By reviewing your comments and listening to our colleagues, we’re heading in the right direction of making UHNM a great place to work - delivering exceptional care with exceptional people.

Please use this guide to help you interpret the data you receive and engage your team with the results.

Examples of you said we did

New approach to resolution, encouraging feedback and appreciation

Improving together

Enable programme

Reviewed our PDR paperwork and process

Improved uniforms for admin staff

24/7 food deli

Ward areas secured appliances for lunch breaks

Cultural awareness and celebrations

Being Kind events and eLearning: over 2,500 colleagues have made a commitment to being kind, compassionate and inclusive

New bike shelters

Resolution policy

Well-being gardens for staff

New lunch and relaxation pods

North Midlands and Cheshire Pathology service set up a staff engagement forum

Time to talk sessions with directorate manager and lead nurse to be implemented across the medicine division

Lockers and monitors ordered for outpatients

Reduced time to hire

Introduced our new Employee Experience Champions role

Visit has been arranged for UHNM wellbeing lead to visit spoke sites

New Men’s Health Group

Launch of Women’s Network

Before the survey launches

Introduction

What is the NHS staff survey?

The NHS National Staff Survey is one of the largest workforce surveys in the world and is carried out every year to improve employee experiences across the NHS. The survey is owned by NHS England and the Staff Survey Coordination Centre is based at Picker Institute Europe.

The survey offers a snapshot in time of how people experience their working lives, gathered at the same time each year. Its strength is in capturing a national picture alongside local detail, enabling a range of organisations to understand what it is like for staff across different parts of the NHS and work to make improvements. The aggregated survey results are official statistics, providing a rich source of data that is used by a wide range of NHS organisations to inform understanding of staff experience locally, regionally and nationally.

NHS Staff Survey people promise YouTube video

What is the purpose of the staff survey?

The survey is confidential giving employees the opportunity to share their views in complete confidence. It helps organisations to understand how different areas and different workforce groups are feeling. This can then be used to make important changes which will improve the working environment, something which we know from research will also mean better outcomes for patients.

Why is it important everyone has their say?

Here at UHNM we each have a voice that counts. Sharing your thoughts and feelings by completing the Staff Survey you will be helping to make UHNM a great place to work for everyone.

At UHNM we strive for a highly engaged workforce. Research shows that

• Patient satisfaction is significantly higher in trusts with higher levels of employee engagement.

• Engagement is also significantly linked to patient mortality in acute trusts, suggesting that in organisations where engagement is highest, the levels of mortality are lower.

• High levels of engagement are associated with much lower absenteeism.

• In trusts where a large percentage of staff felt they could contribute towards improvements at work, infection rates decreased.

Value and impact: How can you raise awareness of the Staff Survey?

• Discuss at all team meetings

• Discuss at all levels divisional board, directorate performance reviews

• Divisional and directorate walkabouts

• Link in with your divisional Employee Experience Champions

What happens with the results?

The NHS Staff Survey is run independently and gives you the opportunity to share - anonymously and in confidence - what it is like for you working in the NHS.

On average 650,000 staff have taken part in the NHS Staff Survey each year over the past few years and now more of our NHS people are able to participate than ever before, with many trusts now able to include bank only workers with a tailored version of the main Survey.

Once the Staff Survey closes, all the individual answers are carefully compiled and analysed in line with the rules as an official statistic and the details are shared with each division to support focused improvement within areas that are of the most importance to employees. The results provide valuable information that can be used by your own employer and by national NHS organisations to understand and improve your working experience and patient care. In the words of the People Promise, “We each have a voice that counts” so please have your say and help make our NHS and UHNM the workplace we all want it to be.

Confidentiality

Be reassured your NHS Staff Survey answers are completely confidential and anonymous. UHNM does not have access to the responses/questionnaires or to any personal data. The report that is sent back to the organisation presents the survey findings in summary form and does not reveal the identity of the staff surveyed.

UHNM provides information about all of its staff who are eligible to take part in the Staff Survey to the independent contractor who will run the survey on their behalf. This could include details such as your name, work address, directorate, and staff group.

The survey provider will assign a unique number to every response, and UHNM is not able to match these codes with individual answers or respondents. The number will be used to track survey completion, but UHNM cannot see if you have filled in the Staff Survey or what you have said. You may receive a reminder email to complete the survey which is also sent from the survey provider.

All findings will be reported to UHNM in anonymised form for groups of 11 or more people to prevent identification. Once the survey has ended all staff details will be deleted and paper questionnaires destroyed securely.

NHS Staff Survey - Confidentiality Information Youtube video

Externally, the survey is a rich data source to understand people’s working experiences and is used by CQC, Workforce Disability Equality Standard, Freedom To Speak Up and National Guardians Office, Social Partnership Forum, and the Pay Review Body.

During the survey

Key roles and responsibilities during the Staff Survey

Executive Team

During the survey the Executive team sponsor the Staff Survey across the Trust and share key messages to engage with the workforce. Regularly reviewing to ensure actions are taking place which align to our people strategic priority which is to improve employee engagement.

Divisional Operations Director/Divisional Nurse Director/SMT

Have a responsibility to ensure that with every interaction teams have we take the opportunity to discuss the importance of everyone completing the survey and share the great things that have happened here thanks to our colleagues completing it in previous years.

Heads of Operations/Heads of Nursing/SLT

Ensure that their directorates are empowered to maximise on every opportunity and interaction that they have within their departments and teams whether that be at the start of any key meetings, that informal conversation or being able to facilitate and support their colleagues to access the resources or the time to complete the survey.

Line Managers

Line managers have a responsibility to ensure that all staff have the time and access to be able to complete the Staff Survey. They should communicate regularly with their teams and encourage colleagues to give their feedback.

Organisational Development, Culture and Inclusion team

The OD and people team promote the importance of completing the Staff Survey and run drop in and promotional sessions so staff can ask any questions and also fill in their survey.

Staff Networks

Review the data through the lens of the group that they represent and use this to inform wider work and projects of the network.

Union Representatives

Are enablers of the Staff Survey, supporting and feeding back on behalf of colleagues during the survey period.

All Employees

All employee’s have a responsibility for the Staff Survey. Ensure that the survey is completed and that colleagues within you ward and departments have had their say. It is important to encourage your colleagues to complete the survey.

Staff Survey case study:

North Midlands and Cheshire Pathology Service (NMCPS) 2020/21

The staff survey showed a significant drop in scores for the North Midlands and Cheshire Pathology Service (NMCPS) between the 2020 and 2021 surveys and it was recognised that immediate and sustained action was needed within the division.

As a result of this feedback we began by developing an action plan to focus specifically on some of the challenging themes from the survey and to work on a strategy to address these. We wanted to develop a staff led mechanism for improvement. The result was the NMCPS staff engagement programme.

We initially put out a call to action for our NMCPS colleagues to volunteer as staff engagement champions. We asked them to attend one of four face-to-face meetings conducted at each of our laboratory sites at Stoke, Leighton, County and Macclesfield Hospitals. The response was fantastic with over 10% of the workforce attending one of the kick-off meetings. There was a real determination from the management team to work out how to improve the experiences of our staff.

Your job

24 out of 25 questions showed a lower score than 2020.

Your manager

5 out of 5 questions showed lower score than 2020.

Your wellbeing

7 out of 17 questions showed a lower score than 2020; however 6 questions did show an improved score.

Your organisation

8 out of 8 questions showed lower scores compared to 2020.

Your organisation

Overall 80% of the questions asked in 2021 showed a lower score compared to 2020.

Much of the discussion in the first four meetings was centred on developing an understanding of the challenges we were facing. Some were relative quick wins such as a requirement for new chairs in the staff room. Others were and continue to be much more difficult to address such staff shortages and project fatigue.

In order to work together to address our issues, we developed an agenda and an action log and minutes were taken in the meetings with a view to sharing all content with all of the NMCPS team to ensure transparency of process. We also shared the results of the survey in addition to the results of an independent ICS report and our overarching action plan so that everyone was aware of the situation.

The staff engagement forum has now been in place for over 12 months. Meetings continue on a bimonthly basis with four meetings per round conducted face-to-face at each of our sites. The number of engagement champions has grown by an additional 50% since the programme started and we continue to have a high degree of engagement in the meetings. The programme is fully embedded into our Divisional governance structure and we report on progress each month at our key forums including the NMCPS Board.

We have incorporated a staff experience agenda item in the board meeting and a number of representatives from NMCPS have already attended this meeting.

We recognise that we have not solved all of our issues. There are significant, persistent and on-going challenges within the Division but we are committed to addressing and solving them in a collaborative fashion. The staff engagement programme is pivotal to connect with all NMCPS staff and we are confident that the process we have in place will lead to some significant improvements for our team over time. The engagement champions have really embraced this initiative and have been highly engaged in the meetings. There has been opportunity for shared learning and we feel that we are at least aware of each other’s challenges, even those that are neither quick nor easy to resolve.

From the Trust Being Kind training, it is clear that having a happier and more engaged workforce improves outcomes for our patients. We are determined to reap the benefits of this. The NMCPS staff engagement programme is the cornerstone of our route to improvement and we hope to see the impact of the work done by our champions in the upcoming staff survey.

Promoting the staff survey - how you can spread the word

Regular team meetings across your ward and department

Meet with your colleagues throughout the duration of the staff survey period and encourage them to fill in the survey and share their thoughts.

If you have regular team meetings ask the team who hasn’t filled in their staff survey each week and ensure time is scheduled for each colleague to fill in their survey.

Drop in sessions

If teams across UHNM have limited access to a computer, ward areas and departments should create drop in sessions with access to a spare computer so that all colleagues have the opportunity to fill in the staff survey.

Managers should ensure that each colleague is given time to fill in their survey.

Colleagues could also have the chance to fill in paper copies in these drop in sessions.

Employee experience champions

UHNM employee experience champions promote and support Trust-wide initiatives and programmes to develop our organisational culture.

They will promote the NHS Staff Survey and are on hand to help guide colleagues on how to complete the survey.

For managers: After the survey ends

Key roles and responsibilities when the survey is over

Executive Team

Regularly review to ensure actions are taking place which align to our people strategic priority which is to improve employee engagement.

Divisional Operations Director/Divisional Nurse Director/SMT

Reporting the overall People Action Plans for their respective divisions to the executive team.

Heads of Operations/Heads of Nursing/SLT

Responsible for leading on their directorate’s/ department’s results, taking actions and creating a People Action Plan. This will feed into the divisions final People Action Plan for review.

Line Managers

Responsible for taking local action because of the feedback, sharing the outcomes of the survey with colleagues making local changes as a result of feedback from colleagues.

Organisational Development, Culture and Inclusion team

Responsible for providing the data to teams, and supporting them in understanding the data, facilitating focus groups with teams if required.

Staff Networks

Review the data through the lens of the group that they represent and use this to inform wider work and projects of the network.

Union Representatives

Are enablers of the Staff Survey, supporting and feeding back on behalf of colleagues.

All Employees

All employee’s have a responsibility for the Staff Survey. Ensure that once the survey is completed colleagues engage with the results, working with your line manager to create local action plans and support the implement of these actions as a team.

Engaging with your team on the results

Email staff a summary of your team results

As a people manager, it’s your responsibility to share a summary of the results with your team whilst in embargo. Once the embargo has been lifted, you can send a full summary of the results. Be open and honest with the results, share what’s working and what isn’t working. By sharing the results, you are telling your team that you’re listening to them.

Discussion in team meetings

Communicate, communicate, communicate. By talking about the results in team meetings, you’re helping to build employee belief that the feedback they leave in the Staff Survey will lead to positive change.

Survey focus group

Involve the team and gather a deeper understanding of the results. These are the people who have given the feedback, they will help interpret the results. By having a focus group you will be able to define key areas to focus on and create ideas for action as a team.

Create a presentation or poster

Share a summary of the results via a presentation and/or put posters up in your department. By doing this, you’re being transparent and able to share the results with everyone, even if they are unable to attend meetings or focus groups. Offer your support to discuss the results in more detail.

By using the Staff Survey results, we are able to celebrate what we are doing well and identify areas for improvement. As a people manager, you should support the engagement of your team by providing opportunities for them to be involved in identifying and implementing the improvements most important to them and by encouraging team engagement.

What should I do first?

1. Start the conversation

Discuss your Staff Survey results as a team. Use them as a conversation starter, reflecting upon whether these results relate to current thoughts and experiences. As a team decide what to focus on and ideas to improve team engagement.

A good starting point for this is to email your whole team. Please see the example below which you may want to use.

Email template

Dear Team,

Firstly a big thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the NHS Staff Survey this year, especially during these extremely busy times. As a team we had a total of X% response rate.

I would like to highlight two key results. Firstly a result to celebrate: (insert positive scoring question here) and the second score is something which I am going to focus on (insert most negative scoring question here). Below are some of the things I have noticed:

• Insert key themes here

Once the embargo has lifted, I will share a full breakdown of the results.

I am going to be discussing these results in our team meetings and also set up some focus groups for you to attend. I really want us to work together as a team and create some positive changes as a result of your feedback. I’d recommend taking the time to look at the results ahead of these meetings.

if you have any questions about the results please let me know. Again, thank you for using your voice and helping us shape a great place to work for everyone.

Name

Title

2. Get together

Now that you’ve identified the initial findings from your team Staff Survey results, organise a meeting with your team to discuss the results and identify any solutions.

Preparing for your session

There are different ways to do this i.e take a section of the results a month, or just have a general one-hour session discussing all areas. Regardless of the length of time, here are some key things to remember:

• Give people as much notice as possible, especially if you’re going to send the results in advance and want them to review these and think of ideas before the session.

• Set an agenda with clear expectations so people know the value of attending the session.

• Thank them for their participation – thank them for taking the time to complete the survey, ensuring that they know their voice matters to you as their leadership team.

• Support their understanding around the confidentiality of the survey. Confirm that they know that you or anyone else are unable to see who completed they survey. Refer to the confidentiality video in this booklet.

• Celebrate the successes and focus on continuous improvement. Celebrate what your team do/continue to do or think is working, however ensure focus is given to the areas of opportunity you have within the results.

• Create a safe environment so that everyone knows they have a part to play in making your team, and the Trust, a great place to work.

1. Discuss key feedback

2. Problem solve

3. Prioritise for impact

3. Identify your areas of focus as a team

Start the session by going through the results and sharing what you felt were some of the key findings.

As a guide for this, you can split this under key headings:

Celebrate success

What are we doing well?

What are our strengths?

Where are we ahead of the Trust benchmarks?

What are our biggest improvements?

Opportunities to improve

What is not going so well?

Where are we falling behind compared to last years results?

Where are we falling behind compared to the Trust benchmarks?

Investigate further

Are there any areas we need to look into further?

Break the Habit!

Around 45% of choices we make every day are based on habits, rather than decisions. Through being aware of what drives our behaviours, biases, and assumptions, we can start to break our habit and really make a change. Don’t dismiss an idea because it was done 10 years ago and didn’t work out, speak up, share and discuss as a team what you can achieve together.

What to do after engaging with your team

Add these actions to your people action plan

It’s important to not let the survey disappear. Provide your team with updates on what has happened based on the results of the survey throughout the year. You could let them know what big actions are in place, or those small steps you’re taking to make improvement. Summarise these actions in ways which are quick and easy, either via email, in team meetings / bulletins.

Thank your team for their feedback and share actions

Share the difference their feedback makes and the importance of engaging with the survey.

Create some local actions

Once you’ve taken the time to meet with your team and get their feedback, it’s important you do something with this information. Without this your team may feel like they’ve used their voice, and nothing has happened as a result.

If there is a complex query or wider support is needed please link in with your OD, Culture and Inclusion Team

Do you need any further support?

If you need a copy of your teams localised results, if you’d like help exploring the data in more detail or even require support with any focus groups around the data, please contact the ODCI team via: staffexperience@uhnm.nhs.uk

The circle of concern

When you’re looking through the results, you may be thinking “I can’t do anything about that” - challenge that thinking to see if there is any room to expand the sphere of influence. What would need to happen for that to change? What is one small thing that could help here?

Popularised by Stephen Covey, this concept explores three spheres:

1. The Circle of Concern – the wide range of worries we might have about a topic

2. The Circle of Influence – a narrowing of the first circle into those worries we can do something about –either directly or indirectly

3. The Circle of Control – an even smaller circle, representing the things we can actually directly do something about